Nuclear Scientist arrested for Al Qaeda ties

If you were an Al Qaeda big wig. You want to infiltrate western organizations to recruit supporters. Low level, unskilled recruits are "muscle", like the thugs that took over the planes on 9/11. More skilled, specialized recruits provide the path to Al Qaeda's spectacular attacks, like plane flying Mohammed Atta.

So what sort of skills is Al Qaeda recruiting?

The French authorities have arrested a physicist who worked for years at CERN, the huge nuclear research center in Switzerland, on suspicion of links to Al Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa, the center said Friday.

But not to worry, it's not like a nuclear scientist is working for Al Qaeda, or something. Well, he is, but it's no big deal:

“His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” said the statement from the center, whose formal name is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. “None of our research has potential for military application, and all our results are published openly in the public domain.”

Well OK, then. I mean, it's not like he knows any Nuclear Science, or something.

UPDATE 13 October 2009 08:05: Burt in the comments leaves the secret NSA transcript of the Al Qaeda plan:

"Ahmed, I loaded your CD into Satanic Large Hadron Collider computer."

"Excellent! With Allah's blessing, we can make black holes attack USA!"

"Ahmed, what happens if black holes attack our Muslim brothers?"

"Excellent! We blame it on USA!"

"But, what if we destroy the world?"

"Excellent! We are martyrs to the cause!"

Heh.